Brainstorm Your Next Story
You have your next story title or theme, the germ of an ideas, an inkling, that feeling, that piece of dialogue running in your mind…NOW you need to nail your story by capturing your notes in one place.
Some call this brainstorming while others say it is mind-mapping. I used to ask children to make a spider’s web when planning a piece of writing.
An Example from My Own Life
Many years ago (2002), while in hospital for a prolonged period of my precious days, I sat beside the window and sketched this spider’s web as a result of all that I could see.
It is now dated as it refers to wards and a hospital that no longer exist – plus I am not in the same town now. The idea behind it is still valid and I have various poem drafts taken from the information and ideas.
If I had simply listed all I could see, I do not think the sheet of paper would have been kept with the same care and reverence. I often sketch out ideas this way because I can link words in a way that is not possible with lists.
List Making is Another Method
However, I also make lists, not just for shopping. Or To Do!
Sit quietly and observe a scene. It can be at home, outdoors, on holiday… whatever the scene, you can list observations about:
- people and animals
- plants and foodstuffs
- vehicles
- colours
- odours
- textures
- sensations, like the wind on your skin
- sounds of voices and music
- anything else you want to record – do it NOW
Such records may form the skeleton of narrative and descriptive writing. Keep the notes in a pocket of your notebook (project books are a good format) as you never know when you will need/find/want it.
What Next?
If, like me, you’re accumulating lots of pages of story ideas, mind maps, lists, drafts… and so on, what do you DO with them?
It is too easy to be a planner not a finisher. Various reasons (mostly health-related ones) have stopped me from writing the piece I had in mind, on many an occasion.
A Promise…
I promise (myself) that I will complete a poem, story or feature resulting from the example above. Using another strategy, I will ask myself these W Questions:
- Where did this all happen?
- Why am I involved or interested?
- What specific ideas arise from this web?
- When did it all happen – or can I bring it up to date?
- Whether there is anything to be learned from my observations?
